2016 NL Delamination
I purchased my 2016 NL QCSE in April 2015 and recently noticed a bulge forming on the starboard side wing just below the cab over - see below. Since this rig is less than a year old even by i...
Forum Discussion
Joe417 wrote:
I've been interested in both the NL 10-2 and BF 10.4, so are you saying that the structure of the fiberglass does not support itself? It requires being bonded to the polystyrene and interior paneling to support the structure of the camper?
I understand how strong stress skin panels are. I've worked on a few. I had a Palomino 8801 that was made that way. Very strong, but the glass was only 1/16" thick and it had an aluminum frame around the edge of each panel.
I thought that both BF and NL were made like a boat, which has a few frames and the transom glassed into the hull but most of the strength in the thickness of the molded fiberglass which is a factor of only fiberglass lamination.
Both these campers and boats rely on the sandwich for stiffness. The Bigfoot skins are around 1/8 inch thick, quite strong in tension but not very stiff in a large panel. They are unlike a boat sandwich construction, you will never see bead board used as a core, 3 mm luan used as the inner skin, and contact adhesive used in a boat.
On the BF, the basement and front panel area which seem to be the problem for the OP are solid plywood under the fiberglass. On my 10.5, two layers of 3/4 (1.5 inch) all around the basement. Not sure what is in the front panel next to the window, probably goes to foam there. For an extra $100 or so per camper, they could use extruded polystyrene, which would be way better for this use. Going to real structural core and real cores construction techniques would be a much larger increase in cost.
